OWN GOAL

During the New Year, the Japanese folks in my community take pleasure in showing foreigners how to 'mochi-tsuki', literally, how to pound glutinous rice cake.

The glutinous rice is first steamed and the trick is to pound it swiftly, finely, and evenly while it is hot.

Otherwise the glutinous rice gets cold and becomes hardened.

Result is, 'han-goroshi mochi'... literally, 'half-killed' or figuratively, 'half-baked' rice cake.

Like half cooked rice, the taste and quality leaves much to be desired.

Meanwhile at Bolehland, my gut feeling is that, a majority of Malaysians prefer to have that silly Causeway Bridge plan locked inside a stainless steel coffin and dumped into the ocean deeps, never to see light again.

However, there seems to be quite a few Malaysians who are rather unhappy with our own decision to cancel the project.

Yes, Singapore is a tough nut to crack...

And these Malaysians blame Singapore for being a tough negotiator.

I say to these folks, instead of pointing the finger at others, blame our own selves.

We are the ones who put the present 'han-goroshi' politikusians to run, or someone said ruin, the country for us.

A little while ago here in Japan, lawmaker Hisayasu Nagata of the Democratic Party of Japan falsely accused a son of Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe of illegally pocketing 30 million yen from Takafumi Horie, the disgraced ex-president of Livedoor,

Nagata's basis was an email he received from an unidentified source.

The Liberal Democratic Party strongly protested and challenged Nagata to reveal the source.

Nagata refused.

All of Japan was plugged into this drama as the LDP pressured Nagata to resign as lawmaker.

He refused, and refused.

Then Democratic Party of Japan leader Seiji Maehara, resigned to take blame for this fiasco.

This made Nagata's position untenable and almost immediately, he resigned.

Now back to our han-goroshi politicians in bolehland.

They kicked the ball... Singapore deflected...
They dunked... Singapore ducked...
They hit again... Singapore bounced the ball...

Just then, our han-goroshi politikusians who did not do their homework, fumbled clumsily, and in the event, scored our own goal.

As far I can see, Singapore was never interested in replacing the Causeway.

Malaysia went ahead unilaterally with the plan years ago, and slowly but surely screwed up real bad.

Now, if there is something our reckless politikusians big and small, can learn from the so-called, probably dead by now, Look East Policy, they should quietly evaporate from the scene, just as Maehara and Nagata did.

Oh, I wonder if Malaysians recall that infamous incident whereby Columbian national footballer Andres Escobar accidentally no doubt, scored an own goal in a match with the United States in the 1994 World Cup.

The United States won and poor Andres Escobar was murdered days after he returned home.